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This study investigates a novel educational strategy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teaching that integrates the engineering design process (EDP) as a framework. The strategy aims to help teachers explain STEM concepts in a simplified way. We employed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology to enable a systematic review that evaluated the effectiveness of this approach in improving both teaching and learning in STEM subjects.

In order to fulfill the objectives of the review, key data were extracted from each of the 400 articles that were reviewed from three databases: Scopus, ProQuest Central and EBSCO. Two types of analysis were conducted, namely descriptive analysis and literature classification.

This systematic review analyzed 44 articles on the EDP, focusing on 18 detailed studies mainly from ProQuest, SCOPUS and EBSCO. It revealed a limited focus on gender’s impact on EDP and a trend toward interdisciplinary use and integrated research approaches. The study underscores the need for further exploration of demographic influences and preparation programs in EDP across various disciplines, aiming to inform future research and educational policies.

The study’s value lies in its comprehensive assessment of engineering design (ED) research over the past decade, serving as a key reference point. It highlights progress in the field, consolidates findings and provides insights into the field’s evolution, guiding future research directions in ED.

Racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) women continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs and careers. Peer mentoring is one strategy that can support their participation. This study explores the experiences of Black women peer mentors in an online peer mentoring program at two historically Black institutions.

A qualitative case study approach was utilized to explore the impact of an online peer mentoring program on peer mentors' STEM self-efficacy, sense of community, STEM identity and intent to persist in STEM.

Analysis identified five themes relating to peer mentors' experiences in the program: (1) an “I can do this” approach: confidence and self-efficacy; (2) utility of like others; (3) “beacons of light”: intersecting and malleable identities; (4) skills development and (5) motivation and reciprocity. Further, challenges of the online relationship were shared.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge by demonstrating the utility of an online peer mentoring model among women mentors enrolled in STEM programs at two historically Black institutions. The findings support those who are historically marginalized in participating in and remaining in STEM.

This pan-Canadian study examines the information practices of STEM-trained immigrant women to Canada as they navigate workfinding and workplace integration. Our study focuses on a population of highly skilled immigrant women from across Canada and uses an information practice lens to examine their lived experiences of migration and labour market integration. As highly trained STEM professionals in pursuit of employment, our participants have specific needs and challenges, and as we explore these, we consider the intersection of their information practices with government policies, settlement services and the hiring practices of STEM employers.

We conducted a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 74 immigrant women across 13 Canadian provinces and territories to understand the nature of their engagement with employment-seeking in STEM sectors. This article reports the findings related to the settlement and information experiences of the immigrant women as they navigate new information landscapes.

As immigrants, as women and as STEM professionals, the experiences of the 74 participants reflect both marginality and privilege. The reality of their intersectional identities is that these women may not be well-served by broader settlement resources targeting newcomers, but neither are the specific conventions of networking and job-seeking in the STEM sectors in Canada fully apparent or accessible to them. The findings also point to the broader systemic and contextual factors that participants have to navigate and that shape in a major way their workfinding journeys.

The findings of this pan-Canadian study have theoretical and practical implications for policy and research. Through interviews with these STEM professionals, we highlight the barriers and challenges of an under-studied category of migrants (the highly skilled and “desirable” type of immigrants). We provide a critical discussion of their settlement experiences and expose the idiosyncrasies of a system that claims to value skilled talent while structurally making it very difficult to deliver on its promises to recruit and retain highly qualified personnel. Our findings point to specific aspects of these skilled professionals’ experiences, as well as the broader systemic and contextual factors that shape their workfinding journey.

This article discusses several issues concerning STEM in the context of teacher education.

Using a review of the literature of the past two decades, this article approached the topic of addressing STEM in the context of teacher education through six issues.

1. Integration is key. 2. Disciplinary knowledge needs emphasizing. 3. Equitability of discipline representations is a nonfactor. 4. Still, mathematics deserves a heavier dose. 5. Collaboration is a desired component. 6. Inequality issues deserve more attention.

This article is original. It informs researchers, practitioners and policymakers of what issues to focus on concerning STEM in the context of teacher education.

This paper discusses early childhood classrooms as powerful spaces for identity work and, more specifically, as a place (or not) for supporting early STEM identity development. It makes the case for educators and researchers alike to promote an expanded role of early childhood STEM education in the daily lives of young children.

This paper uses a qualitative interpretive methodology, drawing from a wide array of research and theoretical literature from early childhood and STEM education and developmental psychology, as well as public policy.

Today, both research and interventions aimed at fixing the “leaking STEM pipeline” and theory/research on STEM identity development focus on children in middle school and above. Yet, children's attitudes about STEM and about themselves as STEM learners are formed early, and identity work is a task of early childhood. This suggests a need to focus on young children's engagement with STEM education as a means of nurturing their early STEM identity development.

This paper synthesizes previous research to outline the need for expanding STEM education in early public schooling. It proposes a conceptualization of early STEM academic identity development (based on the premise that middle school is too late to fix the leaking STEM pipeline).

Within the scope of broadening participation and developing diverse talents in STEM leadership, this paper aims to deliver a research study that explores faculty leaders’ caring intelligence as STEM leadership intelligence. STEM leadership intelligence is the knowledge, skills, traits and aptitude essential to effective leadership in STEM education.

A previously developed STEM caring-oriented academic managerial leadership framework (SCAMLF) and a typology of STEM faculty leadership styles were used to thematically analyze the caring intelligence and leadership qualities of STEM faculty leaders. Interview transcripts of 18 STEM faculty leaders at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), provided by the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership (CASL), were used as data in this study.

The empirical evidence gained from this study highlighted important themes, descriptors and narratives for exploring caring intelligence and leadership intelligence of STEM faculty leadership in HBCUs.

Although the generalizability of the study is limited because of the sample size, STEM caring was found to be the most common dimension present in the reflections of participating STEM faculty leaders with diverse leadership styles. Implications for future research on STEM leadership intelligence were discussed.

Studying caring intelligence as a form of leadership intelligence provides a new and innovative means of assessing STEM leadership intelligence. Caring intelligence can be employed to predict the mindset, performance and behaviors of STEM faculty leaders.

This study provides empirical support for a link between video game play and likelihood to major in a STEM field.

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study investigates whether adolescents who play video games are more likely than those who do not to choose a STEM field major in college, and if other characteristics explain this relationship.

Results from a nested series of logistic regression models show that – compared to those who do not play video games in adolescence – teens who play video games are 70% more likely to major in a STEM field when they attend college.

The Add Health dataset allows for empirical verification of the link between video game play and STEM major choice, but it is dated. Future research should use more recent data. Factors such as gaming platform and game genre are likely to be key variables in future research.

This finding lends support for including video game play as a potential factor in future studies on college major choice, and offers further empirical support for utilizing video games as a potential gateway into STEM.

Going beyond previous research, this study finds that playing commercial video games may be one entry point to STEM fields, and implies that it is important to understand the impact of games that millions of young people play.

Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing human capital development issues due to unskilled employees. The institutes of Malaysian education are providing ineffective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education which are generating unskilled graduates as a future workforce. The low capability of Malaysian graduates affect the performance of Malaysian SMEs. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of STEM education in solving the human capital development issues for the enhancement of Malaysian SMEs performance. The current literature explores the ineffective system of STEM education for Malaysian graduates which result in human capital development issues in Malaysian SMEs. The curriculum of Malaysian education institutions plays a pivotal role in making the university graduates skillful since a teacher should teach the syllabus according to the need of the national curriculum and the student must learn practical knowledge for the sake of the professional employee in future. Hence, this study identified the significance of properly provided STEM education to deal with the human capital development issues faced by Malaysian SMEs. Effective STEM education is important in generating the human capital as it makes the university graduates skilled and capable which enable them to successfully meet the industry needs in future. Likewise, through the development of human capital, the performance of Malaysian SMEs could be improved.

The shift in undergraduate student demographic composition, particularly for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, has been coupled with an ever increasing need for faculty to be more culturally aware and responsive. Traditionally, higher education has relied on the professional development programs of disciplinary societies and associations to meet such needs. However, designing professional development for STEM faculty in ways that awaken awarenesses about racial differences and their impact on academic success requires more than the conventional faculty development offerings, which, more often than not, only give cursory nods to difference or limit programming to “cookbook” protocols of do's and don'ts. Indeed, today's STEM faculty professional development must be met with more sophisticated paradigms that foreground personal reflection and development. Safe brave spaces represent an ideal mechanism for supporting not only personal reflection but also the grappling with and letting go of the destructive values and beliefs that negatively impact undergraduate STEM student success. The chapter offers the reader a view into our perspective as conveners of safe brave professional development spaces. In it, we also share the words of a safe brave space occupier, demonstrating how the power of reflection can influence the value of safe brave spaces. As a result, the reader is left with a different lens through which STEM faculty professional development programs can and should be considered – whether it is who is in them, who is missing from them, or what is required to facilitate more productive interactions within them. Admittedly, there is more work yet to be done. Understanding that this work requires safety and bravery is a necessary next step.

Intervention strategies to increase participation and success in STEM areas vary depending on the specific goals of programs and presumably, their funding. Matyas (1991) focused on minority engineering programs and found that successful programs tend to contain the following elements: (a) assistance with admission procedures;, (b) assistance with student matriculation; (c) academic support services; (d) student study center; (e) linkage of students with minority student organizations in engineering; and (f) summer engineering jobs. A recent, systematic review by a panel of experts identified eight design principles that underpin exemplary and promising higher education-based STEM interventions: (a) institutional leadership; (b) targeted recruitment; (c) engaged faculty; (d) personal attention; (e) peer support; (f) enriched research experience; (g) bridging to the next level; and (h) continuous evaluation (BEST, 2004).